The wing damage that grounded Boeing's new composite 787 Dreamliner occurred under less stress than previously reported — and is more extensive.An engineer familiar with the details said the damage happened when the stress on the wings was well below the load the wings must bear to be federally certified to carry passengers.In addition, information obtained independently and confirmed by a second engineer familiar with the problem shows the damage occurred on both sides of the wing-body join — that is, on the outer wing as well as inside the fuselage...

Here's my two cents as a boeing boomer that is in software today...

Ok, who remembers the 2707 swing-wing SST, the airplane that almost ate Seattle? It was a wonderful innovative device, a moving wing that won over the fixed-wing Lockheed design, it would save weight they said. Then they made it fold into a delta like the near-failed F-111,then they added the canard, then by the time they were crossing the Ts and dotting the Is they figured it couldn't carry enough fuel to fly farther than Portland, and they had to SCRAP THE ENTIRE WING. They switched to a fixed wing, just like the L-2000, but with a tail. By that time, the Euro Concord flew, and congress killed the entire idea. Any wonder there's no sign of the Boeing SST at either Seattle's museum of flight or the Future of Flight museum in Everett? (BTW, the SST is why we hadthe "supersonics" basketball team, also just a memory, and Rockwell's B-1 figured out how to make a big swing wing work) In the old days a"prototype" was a one-off plane they built to prove the concepts worked before tooling up to build lots of them. And now they've already built 10 before they tested the first one??? Wow.

wonder how many "fixes" (a.k.a., high tech duct tape) the company will be able to put on the thing before they lower it's fuel economy. I think they'd have been smarter to bring back an upgraded 757 or rework the 767. This "new airplane" is looking to be a disaster!

This is becoming very serious. Who knows what will be discovered in flight tests. From what initially looked like a cash cow, the 787 program may be lucky to to break even at all.

July 30, 2009 at 7:06 AMRating: (13) (0)Log in toreport abuseBoeing senior management should drop everything and rush to Everett. Senior management already dropped everything, especially the ball, by moving to Chicago, that hub of aviation. And for those complaining of outsourcing, reread the article. The problem is in the design and not in the individual outsourced parts. The design of the wing, the heart and soul of any airplane, appears to be flawed. And that is a very serious matter.NoName66Portland, OR191 comments

Friday, July 17, 2009

Julia Lacey's people invited me to drop out of the race, but Ideclined.

Incumbment Sue Buske has filed the "I won't spend any money" form for the PDC. Julia I'm told file for the full form. I don't intendto knock myself out for this race, but filed the full just in case.

Lacey's evidently gotten the lion's share of endorsment from democrats, teacher employee and what looks like another professional union or two. That's OK, as the "radical reformer" of the bunch and known conservative I wouldn't expect their endorsements. I don't know who's going to back buske if all the liberals have jumped ship for Lacey.

Talking with parents at the graduation ceremony where my son wasdrummer in one of the bands, one parent was impressed that I knewher son and many of the other students at Bothell high. I ran intoone woman who knew Buske, and sure enough supported her. Anothermusic parent knew her but had some deep reservations and concededI would bend just as far backwards to get the bands to Oregon.

I wandered around the Parade July 4th. Dawn McCready, the maverickcurrently on the board was hanging with the scouts, who had somecomplaints about access to schools and handing out flyers. I ran intothe guy with the votebothell.com website, and one parent who pulled his kids from the schools because of math. Ran into my bass player friend from Everett Symphony who helps with strings and teaches substitute and state senator Rosemany McAuliffe who I had always told over the years that WASL was bad bad bad, she said "we're improving things". No real negative vibes from anybody, and perhaps a dozen who recognized me as parent or real estate client.

Only Kathy Swanson had a convertible in the parade surrounded by a half-dozen kids and parents with hand-made signs in addition to various city council and Gossett for county council.

Lying mentioned it might be a good idea to promise to stick around for a term before trying for legislature since the current board gets to pick the temporary successor not the guy who quits.

BTW, this covers both snohomish and King County, so any endorsements from either county would be helpful if you have connections in either place.

Friday, July 10, 2009

Originally March 27, 1998 by Arthur Hufor Seattle's Asian Focus Magazine"The Chinese Must Go!": Matloff's Myth of a Programmer ShortageArthur Hu's immigration facts page can be found athttp://www.arthurhu.com/arthurhu/index/immig.htm

Details on Norman Matloff's immigration and welfare page can be foundat http://www.leconsulting.com/arthurhu/index/matloff.htm

Seattle Asians may wince at ObeChine's use of a Chinese caricature asa restaurant sign. But visit the Washington State History Museum inTacoma to see a poster which headlines "The Chinese Must Go!" Noteverybody remembers the times when organizations like the "Knights ofLabor " used the threat that that Chinese immigrants, who were oftenattacked and ridiculed for wearing pigtails and oriental clothing,took jobs away from Americans. Angry mobs once lynched and burned theChinese out of every major city in the west. The anti-immigrationmovement not only drove most Chinese workers back to China, butpassed laws practically banning all Chinese immigration until theCivil Rights era.

Today, Microsoft is asking to lift the cap on H-1 visas because theirdemand for foreign programming talent will soon hit the currentceiling. The Chinese are building operating systems to tameCyberspace for barons like Bill Gates as they once built railroadsfor Leyland Stanford to settle the West.

But it is Republicans, lead by Michigan's Spencer Abraham, who arefending off attempts to roll back immigration. And it's not PatBuchanan, but the obscure Norman Matloff, computer science professorof the University of California at Davis, a Democratic of Jewishheritage who has become the nation's architect of arguments based onhis relationships to the Chinese community to cut back if not end allimmigration. Instead of ignoring this man, Asians should seriouslystart examining charges that this man is steadily on a path that mayassure him a spot in history as the one man movement who carried thelegacy of the anti-Chinese movement into the information age.

Matloff has been quoted in the New York Times, US News and WorldReport, even Seattle's own free Computer Source newspaper for hispresentation to Information Technology Associations of Americaasserting that the widely publicized software worker shortage isa "myth". Matloff is always careful to note that he is married intoand active in the Chinese community, and hardly the picture of axenophobe.

But consider roots of this evolution from his criticisms of theChinese community he has become active in. In the Feb 1994 issue ofthe conservative National Review (later attacked for anotherunflattering portrayal of Asians), Matloff argues in "Easy Money,Lost Traditions" that 50% of Chinese elderly immigrants arecommitting fraud by collecting SSI despite sponsorship pledges ofsupport. This article was the spark that lead to legislation thatmade all noncitizens ineligible for any means tested benefits. Hisresponse? The laws didn't go far enough since naturalized citizensare still eligible.

In 1995, I calculated from an employee newsletter that probably 35%or more of Microsoft's newest developers were immigrants, not justthe 8% aliens usually quoted. Most industry leaders decry cuttingback on the source of one-third of their best minds. Butin "Debugging Immigration" from NR October 9, 1995, Matloff says thatimmigrants are not only not needed, they're harmful.

They are not as skilled or innovative as natives. Whether it's TimeMan of the Year Andrew Grove of Intel, Charles Wang of ComputerAssociates, or Jerry Yang of Yahoo, he boldly proclaims that with theexception of An Wang, immigrants have made no essential innovations,and are no more essential than Indian motel owners. Immigrants arehired only because of their cheap labor, not their talent.

If they dominate 90% of their world markets, or created thesemultibillion dollar markets and associated wealth out of thin air inonly two decades, it would have been done equally by natives alone.In fact, Intel and Microsoft have "bungled" not advanced PC design,in his opinion. Immigrants don't create jobs because their hiringnetworks take jobs away from Americans and lower hiring standards.

He counters the remarkable academic record, and overwhelmingpredominance of over-representation of Asians in every education andindustry statistic from employment rates to patent filings with theonly evident area of under-achievement, awards from professionalsocieties like IEEE and ACM. Matloff choses to slam the abilities ofthe only ethnic groups than can rival the Jewish Americans in hightech. His is only education study ever published which concludes thatthe academic skills of Asians are not greater, but lower than thoseof natives.

In the San Francisco Chronicle May 20, 1997, "Asians, Blacks andIntolerance", and testimony to Congress "The Adverse Impacts ofImmigration on Minorities", Matloff paints both the Asian andHispanic communities as harboring hatred towards the AfricanAmericans. Oliver Wang wrote back that he appears to "bash the samecommunity he claims to have been active in".

Does any racist poster provide detailed footnotes on the internetthat prove that the Chinese (and Hispanics) are shameless racists,the Chinese (and Russians) flagrantly abuse the welfare system, orthat Chinese (and Indians) are harmful to US leadership in high tech?Isn't this massive catalog of cultural defects documenting Asians thesame way that Mein Kampf categorized Jewish contributions to Germany?Isn't being America's top expert on opposing immigration, a professorquoted by the New York Times, and who has succeeded in inspiringlegislation, far more dangerous and subtle than any hate email, orskinhead web site? And why is it that no civil rights organizationleader has ever issued a public rebuttal or condemnation of suchattitudes?

Matloff's positions are so far off reality they would be comical ifthe consequences weren't so potentially disastrous for a city whereMicrosoft is the #1 creator of millionaires, and each job creates 3.5to 5 new jobs compared to 2.8 at Boeing. Matloff says stoppingimmigration would force companies to hire natives, but figures citedby Electrical Engineering Times shows only 6% of new programmers comefrom foreign countries in a pie that grows by 10% per year. 11% arethe very unemployed workers Matloff says should be hired first.Matloff's paints a picture of a career field in depression whenprogramming has the lowest unemployment rate (not even 1%) and thehighest pay of any nonprofessional degree career.

Matloff says there wouldn't be a shortage if Microsoft simply hiredthe other 98% of applicants they reject. His most famous line is thatthat any programmer can be productive in any technology within 2weeks. If most PhD's, and people with the latest hot skills areforeigners, he counters that no programming job requires any specifictraining, experience, or degree. Logically, this leaves immigrationstatus as the only background factor that is reliably associated withthe lack of programming talent.

Thus, Matloff presents "Cindy", an unemployed defense programmerwhose resume is devoid of any current career keywords as primeexample of "exceptional" talent. Only a man who can wave hiscredentials as a computer science professor can get away convincingpeople outside the industry that Cindy is superior to H-1 workerslike the Armenian earning 6 figures building Microsoft's next webbrowser, or the Canadian doing 3D scene rendering at Sierra Online.The only underpaid sweatshop H-1 workers I've known are ones likethis Armenian who have worked their way up into the big time.

Matloff's widely quoted immigrant wage gap of 15% is just plain wrongwhen accounts usually leave out the fine print. It compensates foreducation when immigrants have far more education, and only looksonly at Silicon Valley, which has the highest pay levels in theworld, and most natives live elsewhere. Census figures show 38% ofSanta Clara County Asians in 1990 had BS degrees compared to only 20%of whites. How can you state that Silicon Valley immigrants are paidless when those from Taiwan and India had personal incomes of $23,592and $22.440 compared to $16,178 for the US born? The National Sciencefoundation found immigrants with an advantage of $1000 to $4000 witha master's degree, EE Times found their Asian immigrant readers were$3000 ahead, while even the anti-immigrant Center For ImmigrationStudies published figures showing Chinese and Indian immigrantsearned 7% to 12% more than natives.

Alarmists say that immigrants bring disease, crime, and prejudice,take away jobs, lower wages, and destroy the environment. Yet 19.7million jobs were created in the decade from 1983-93, over twice the8,948,475 immigrants who arrived during 1983-92. Recent headlinesshow that living standards are the highest ever in history.Unemployment is at the lowest rates since the 1960s. Doctors andengineers have the most immigrants, but have the lowest rates ofunemployment. Likewise, cities like Silicon Valley and Los Angeleswith the highest percentages of immigrants have the lowest rates ofunemployment and the most jobs and the highest pay.

Asians have a lower arrest rate for nearly every crime reported bythe Justice Department. Fears of TB aside, Asians and Hispanics haveequal or better indicators for almost every OTHER health risk likecancer, infant mortality and life expectancy, even among the poor.Asians and Hispanics commit lower rates of hate crimes than natives,and often support affirmative action

Despite predictions of decline, living standards have improved bynearly every measure with increasing population. Natural resourcereserves and food production is up. Air pollution is down. Americanslive longer, drive and live in better homes and cars, and take bettervacations. We can surf the web for the New York Times and affordcomputers and digital video and sound that would have bankrupted thedefense budget only a generation ago.

The real immigration welfare scam is that working age immigrants arepaying for the Social Security checks of elderly whites, while theirown parents won't even qualify for SSI. MIT economist Lester Thurowsays that Social Security is basically a welfare system since currentworkers pay retirees far more than they ever put into the system.Because most immigrants arrive at younger working age, while fewelderly take the leap, Census figures show nonHispanic Whitehouseholds collected $2500 per year in welfare and social security,compared to only $1500 for Asians or Hispanics. When Uncle Sam iscounting immigrants to keep social security afloat, the elderlyparents that they sponsor should be eligible for Social Security, notkicked off of SSI

Don't fooled by the threat of what immigration "might" bring. Thebottom line is higher incomes and standard of living and more jobs.The real conservatives are optimists who live in a world whereeverybody wins, and nobody is the object of blame for economicdecline that just isn't there.

Thursday, July 09, 2009

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/jun2009/db20090626_585028.htmAn Academic's Labor Helps Fight H-1B VisasNorm Matloff, a computer science professor with a Chinese-born wife, says the U.S. skilled-immigrant visa system exploits workers everywhereBy Moira HerbstNot many computer science professors are activists on immigration policy. But Norm Matloff of the University of California, Davis wears both hats. He has been a vocal critic of the H-1B visa program for skilled immigrants since the mid-1990s, and now maintains a Web page and e-mail listserv discussing offshoring and the H-1B visa program, which he calls a "sham." He says his motivation is to protect and preserve tech job opportunities for the students he teaches.

...Matloff posts opinionated blog entries on the Web site of Numbers USA, a group calling for lower levels of immigration. His writing prompted one tech worker, Arthur Hu of Bothell, Wash., to create a Web page criticizing Matloff, whom he calls the "Hatchet Man of Asian Immigration."

I left this comment on the article page:BW interviewed me for this story, they didn't mention that I seeMatloff as the 21st century legacy of California's Workingman's partywhose motto was "The Chinese Must Go". Matloff is the only academic who asserts that Chinese (and other immigrants) not only were not essential to Micrsoft or Silicon Valley (despite the tons of Asians and Indians as employees or founders) but are LESS productive thanother ethnic groups such as EuroAmericans who have lower test scores, grades, and less represented at MIT and Stanford. Odd that man who spends so much time dismissing the qualifications of the Chinese can claim to be a champion of civil rights.

I got some nasty feedback from people who read the BW article:

Hey fraud:

I was just reading your little pro-Asian propaganda blog.

How can you outright lie like that and say Intel and Microsoft were founded by immigrants?Intel was founded by two Americans: Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce. Microsoft was founded by two Americans: Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer.

Both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were college dropouts so there is no correlation between degrees and successful tech companies. I have personally worked with a lot of PhDs who can't ship a product.

Now that most Americans have been driven out of Silicon Valley, the CA economy isn't doing to well, is it? Where is all your high talk now of Asians being smarter and better than Americans?

Where is the Chinese operating system? Where is the Indian operating system? Name one software product created by either of those two countries that anyone uses.

Name one major tech company anyone has heard of that was founded by ALL Asian immigrants.

Why hasn't the huge FLOOD of Asian guest workers who began arriving in 1998 kept the U.S. economy going as promised? Why was 1998-2003 the biggest immigrant wave to the USA in 100 years and we're now in the biggest depression in 70 years?

You have a lot of explaining to do.

Signed Mike (who didn't respond to my answer)

My response to this is that I never said that Asians founded all of these companies (Grove was an immigrant key player in Intel), but both Microsoft and Silicon Valley are full of Asian and European immigrant employees and managers who wouldn't be there if they weren't doing a good job, and I have interviewed with and worked for companies owned or run by either East Asians or Indians. Even Asian Americans not only admit but complain that they lag behind Euro-Americans in management and founding the most important companies, though their contributions as founders is still pretty significant. The idea that the current economic crisis is due to too many immigrant high-tech engineers rather than giving out too many loans to people who couldn't afford or didn't really need homes is a new one to me.

Matloff himself wrote a response "I might say the same for Arthur Hu. With hundreds of millions of Web users, there is likely to be one that rants against any topic under the sun, and it happens that one of Arthur’s topics is me. That’s fine, but some readers of the article may mistakenly take this to mean that Asian-Americans agree with him on the H-1B issue, which they don’t. Every time I’m invited to speak to an Asian-American conference, such as the Asian Pacific American Conference on Law and Public Policy at Harvard and the Asian-American Out of the Silence Conference at Stanford, I get solid support from the audiences. This should be no surprise–with so many Asian-Americans in engineering, H-1B puts their jobs at risk. My support from my own students, two-thirds of whom are Asian-American (not Asian foreign students), is also quite strong. I’m proud to say that they’ve nominated me for various teaching awards, some of which I’ve been fortunate to win."

VDARE also hosted Sanchez who dismissed me with a nasty name and said that I was obsessed with hating Matloff, which is odd for a blogsite that largely promotes the interests of Euro-Americans to accuse others of being Indian-supremacists or politically incorrect.

What continues to bother me about Matloff since the times we debated back in the 90s in emails is how he claims because he's married into the Asian community he can't possibly be harming it. The thing that kills me about the Fundamentalist Mormon persecution is how many ex-members like Flora or Carolyn Jessop are willing to jump on the persecution bandwagon against their former culture, and how people can be so politically correct about being nice to people of all colors and genders AS LONG AS THEY'RE NOT XXX OR PRACTICE YYY in which case it's ok to spread all kinds of vile lies and insults long after it was proven they raided that ranch on the basis of people who never existed and things that never happened. As a bicultural person myself I'm quite capable of supporting or insulting either Asians and Americans.

As I often ask, where in the heck are the politically correct police when you need them? The far-left Asian American Movement appears to give Matloff a complete pass as long as he's not goring the Affirmative Action ox, and helping demolish the dreaded Model Minority stereotype with his claims that Asians and other immigrant Americans are LESS effective in tech than white, black, or Hispanic Americans. Most Asian American activists have never heard of this guy, but you'd think they'd know about the only guy who is quoted for arguing that more Chinese immigrants will harm America.

I get it from both sides being so conservative and libertarian that I'm a free marketer for tech immigration. Look, if we're going to live in a big diverse world where we can move across borders instead of having to invade each other militarily to visit each other's lands, we need to spend less time working on what's good for each other's groups, and work toward what's good for everybody, otherwise we'll keep playing this ridiculous game of promoting only the interests of the politically correct groups of the day.